


What Dreams May Come

by RedHead



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Asphyxiation, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Explicit Sexual Content, Hurt No Comfort, Kind of literally, M/M, Mild Gore, Mindfuck, Stabbing, set in the new remake but if you played the original it'll make as much or more sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:21:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23477671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHead/pseuds/RedHead
Summary: “You’re not real.”“Oh? Then tell me – does this feel real to you, Cloud?”In which Cloud dreams, but not of Aerith.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 5
Kudos: 229





	What Dreams May Come

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the warnings. This isn't pretty.  
> 

When he goes to sleep, it’s sitting up. His back to the wall, his body exhausted. Sector 7, the devastation –

The lump in his throat is tight but the thoughts are too much to process and the emotions too big, kept at a distance, far enough he doesn’t have to feel them, not yet. Hopefully not ever. All that’s important now is his body, pushed to a brink, pulling him under.

When he wakes – is he awake? – it’s dark. Tifa and Barret and Marlene are lost to the world, deep into sleep, and Cloud isn’t sure what woke him but it’s enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck, to make him stand, slip the buster sword carefully into place along his back. He sidesteps the creaky floorboard, avoids tripping any buckets, and makes it to the stairs to investigate without waking anyone.

There’s a hint of silver, just at the base of the stairs. When he catches up, the shadow is near the door. His heart thunders.

He could wake the others. He could fight. He could –

But this isn’t real. Just like all of the other times, this isn’t real, can’t be real. This is his brain meeting fire and devastation with old memories of the same. He swallows back bile and follows the spectre, the wisp of hair.

The night is quiet outside, crickets and cicadas gone to sleep, just a soft breeze now. Elmyra’s home has a view, beautiful at night, cushioned from the rest of the world. Right now the quiet is not a comfort.

Sephiroth is waiting in a bed of flowers. His boots crush them underneath and Cloud’s eyes catch on that, on the golden yellow being crushed down by black. He’d fallen onto a bed of these in the church and they hadn’t looked so bruised as this. A sense of wrongness twists up to his throat.

The sword is a familiar weight in his hands, stance taken. Sephiroth hasn’t said a word but now he smiles, foxlike and aqua, dread pooling in Cloud’s stomach.

“You really think that will save you, Cloud?”

Hairs on his arms, the back of his neck stand on end. He swallows. “I’ve killed you once before.”

The laugh is grating as it is haunting. He darts forward, burst of speed, Mako-induced and useless against the original SOLDIER first-class. Sephiroth sidesteps, parries without lifting his masamune, without more than a condescending sneer.

“So easily as that?”

“What the hell do you want from me?!” It’s shouted, could wake up the entire household, but he doubts they can hear, doubts –

“Live, Cloud. I want to see you live.”

He grits his teeth, shifts his stance. They’re both crushing flowers now.

“What do you think I’m doing, exactly?”

The other man takes a step closer and Cloud is forced to choose – strike or go on the defensive. He moves to slash – to do otherwise with Sephiroth is to be prey to a predator, instinctual in his bones, too open, too rabbit-skittish – and like that the man is a monster, is whip-fast and in his space and has him by the neck before he can blink, can move, lightning and ozone in the air with that speed and –

His throat clicks and he levers himself, flails because there is no traction when you’re over a foot from the ground, when your blow is struck wide and the bones in your wrist crushed to submission, weapon lost to the pressure. His feet have no purchase and his core pumps them forward toward Sephiroth’s stomach but without leverage the movement is meaningless, serves only to exhaust his remaining oxygen. He gets his feet against the man’s torso and pushes but –

Cloud’s throat burns, vision spotting, and what remaining air his lungs were gripping tight is expelled when his back hits the ground hard enough to wind him. He gasps, throat shocky tight and blood-sour around the inhale, gasps and gasps as he tries to force air into lungs that won’t expand. And then a pressure lifts just barely from his chest and his vision snaps to focus on that sinister face above him, grinning manic and replacing the knee onto his chest, pushing down again.

Tears sting the edge of his eyes, forced out as they go wide, grappling but something – fuck, materia, shit – snaps his wrists out to the sides. Some spell, he can fight this, his sword –

“Oh Cloud, keep that fighting spirit. I want to see you break.”

The knee is removed again and he gasps in air before a hand is back at his throat. This time he processes the sensation of warm leather, supple smooth before a thumb with more strength than most humans have in their entire bodies is pressed to cut off the blood to his brain. His eyes roll back just a little, biological response, forcing reedy air in through his mouth and down his trachea, thin through the incomplete hold. His blood pools south against his will.

“There we are. Survival. Life. Even at the threat of death, it persists.”

“Go.” Reedy inhale. “To.” More air, it burns in his chest. “Hell.”

His laugh is the same – deep, rich, reverberating. He hadn’t heard it before that night, before his nostrils had filled with smoke and burning flesh and death. He swears he can smell it now, wafting from Sephiroth’s glove.

“Can’t you feel it? The despair?”

He talks like this, in riddles like Cloud should know what he means, like this is real and not in his head, like this isn’t a nightmare, like –

“This. Isn’t. Real.”

Sephiroth’s grip releases his neck and he throws his body against the materia induced restraints about his wrists, pointless. The man’s knees are on either side of him, weight settled over his stomach, and there’s something so exposed about this, about the way he’s looking down at Cloud. It’s nothing like Corneo’s gaze had been. This isn’t lascivious, undirected lust, disgusting and impersonal. It’s –

“What do you think it is, Cloud?”

He’s almost smiling. His eyes aren’t human, that smile has no warmth, and something cold slides down Cloud’s spine. He’s laid down on a bed of flowers and all he can smell is smoke and leather.

“I’m dreaming.”

Sephiroth’s hands are – he shifts his head, turns it away, denies. They’re on his chest, sliding down. Fingers press right over where his nipples hide under the cloth, as if the intent of the gesture wasn’t already clear.

“You might be.”

One hand north, back to his neck, his jaw, forcing it back. The other south, to his belt. He suppresses a tremor.

“You’re not real.”

Fingers press into his mouth, two of them, long and gloved and tasting like metal. He gags but it’s not enough, not enough to distract from the hand reaching into his open pants, the forceful knees now between his own, pressing his thighs apart.

“Oh? Then tell me – does this feel real to you, Cloud?”

He bites down and it earns another laugh. He closes his eyes, hard in seconds, the hand warm and tight around him, the fingers gagging where they push into the back of his throat, making his eyes sting, his body respond. He throws himself against it, against his bindings, the black spell that swirls around both wrists and holds him to the earth. It’s nothing. He’s nothing. He’s nothing next to Sephiroth, who’s hair tickles his skin. The man pulls his fingers from his mouth but doesn’t stop the rest, pulls his shirt up while Cloud pants in air, tries to form some denial, something that won’t sound like begging but it will, it will and he grits his teeth and bears it.

It’s not real anyway.

There’s no release, the hand quits too soon and he wonders if the spectre will disappear like so many other ghosts, like the memory it is, but luck has never been on his side. His eyes snap open, shocked and animal-instincts now, throwing himself away but there is nowhere to go and Sephiroth’s hands are insistent as they move him, as the man moves until his legs are pressed up and back, pants caught around his knees and shins, and Sephiroth moves into that cradle created by his pants, caged between Cloud's thighs, stretched around the bigger man's hips and –

“No.”

Their gazes meet. Sephiroth looks surprised he found his voice. There’s still a smile dancing on his lips. “You don’t want my gift?”

“Not a gift, you pathetic excuse for a – ”

His throat, again, and it must be purple already with bruises from this. He arches up, lungs burning, and when slick – slick? With what? – fingers breach inside him it is foreign and unwelcome. They stretch and burn and his vision dances black with spots, and when he wonders if his windpipe will be crushed under Sephiroth’s desire the man relents and that burns worse, body greedy for air and gasping again. Sucking air in around Sephiroth’s fingers invading his body once again.

This time the tears aren’t only a response to gagging. He feels – god –

Sephiroth presses into him, slick as the fingers were but so much worse, painful where it forces his body to stretch wide for him. It impales him, sharp and hot somewhere inside, acute and dully aching at once, and Sephiroth fucks his mouth with his fingers, his body with more, and cleaves him open.

 _Cleaves_ \- it’s sharp, sudden and shocking, even for this, even for –

The pain blooms hot – so hot, burning and wet and he _cries out loud FUCK -_ but it's muffled by fingers and does nothing to ease the pain - 

There is a blade sticking out his abdomen. Not the masamune, not that, but another, shorter, pinning him to the earth, a butterfly on a board and he cries out again against the intrusion as it blossoms red over his torso. Right over the scar, the spot – right where Sephiroth stabbed him all those years ago, strung up on a catwalk over a river of Mako. Right where they were first tied together, and he bleeds around the blade protruding from his body as Sephiroth fucks into him, holds his hips steady so his torso doesn’t cleave itself in two around the blade. It's not enough to stop the rocking, the way it cuts him on each thrust but just a lot, no more than a cruel jostle.

His sobs are quiet, desperate, and despite it all, he is impossibly hard, cock curving up against his stomach. He cannot look, cannot let himself, cannot allow this to be real, to be more than –

“Do you feel it now, Cloud? My despair?”

His hips snap with the words, forcing him to stay present. Cloud whines high in his throat. The voice is lower, near his ear now, and hair tickles his chest, his torso, his wound. It must be staining red.

“Do you feel my despair inside of you?”

“You monst – ”

Sephiroth twists the blade and he shouts loud. It's not a lot, not enough to wound him any deeper but it's enough to silence any vocalization, to force him to gasp for air, trying not to pass out. Can you pass out when you're already asleep? Can you -

Fingers press around the steel rising from his abdomen, cool compared to the inflamed skin. A belt buckle digs into the back of his thigh. A gentle breeze catches the tears on his cheeks. Soft dirt and flowers crumble under his fingers. There are feelings beyond the ones inside of him, but they aren’t enough.

“Let’s finish this, now, before she interrupts.”

His eyes snap open, wide and confused and unfocused but then Sephiroth is there, is there is there is there, and his mouth is on Cloud’s and his tongue is pressing inside him and this too, Sephiroth owns. A finger presses in along the blade and he feels it wriggle around, soaking up blood, even as Sephiroth gets fuller inside him, impossibly larger than the man already is where he never fit to begin with. His thrusts come more erratic, breath in pants around his lips. Cloud might vomit. He might –

The finger in his wound leaves, the hand on his hip grips tight. It's almost over and he holds on to that, holds on but - he is being gripped and pumped, this time with purpose. His eyes go wide and slam shut, try to slam out Sephiroth above him, in him, moving with him. It should be impossible for him to respond to this, to fingers slick with his own blood moving on his cock, but he is. Gaia help him, he is. He feels himself pulse as if forced to, compelled, feels his insides clench and tighten around the intrusion so deep and thick it’s a second blade cleaving through him but there is nothing, and –

“Come for me, Cloud. Come to me.”

It rips through him, sudden and unbidden. A jolt through his entire being, helpless to Sephiroth’s commands, and his body jerks and spasms, his world goes white and black and this hurts just as much, more maybe, but his release spills hot and wet over the gloved hand, blood and semen mixing, and Sephiroth groans. His head drops heavy into Cloud’s neck and his teeth dig crescents there and he tenses and – Cloud can feel it, shudders, a few spare tears spilling but –

Sephiroth shudders one more time on top of him, exhales against his wet skin, makes him shiver. The blade is removed first, the _squish_ of flesh and the _shink_ of steel and the hot rush of blood spilling above and below. A hand presses over it and he feels it close. The ache remains and he swallows tight and hard around the rush of relief.

“We’re linked, Cloud. We are joined. Now more than ever. By death, by blood, and now – “ A lazy, belated roll of hips, a little on the nose as a reminder, “by life.”

He curls his lip, his only remaining defense. “It’s not like I can get pregnant, asshole.”

It earns another laugh, as if the man has another reaction in him. Maybe he did once, before he was a disturbing figment of Cloud’s imagination. At least this time it sounds genuine, startled (and almost warm, but that' can't be right), and he pulls out and moves back.

“Lifestream. Cells. My DNA in you. It’s all the same.”

His wrists are released and Cloud breathes a sigh of relief. The time to fight is past. He hauls on his clothes even as Sephiroth stands, righting his own. Pants, belts, straps, adjusting the jacket he never removed, the masumune at his side never once touched, all back in place and imposing as ever. Cloud bites back the groan as he slowly pushes himself to his feet. His neck feels throttled, his insides ache, his hand reflexively clutching over his right side where his wound soaked red to his skin.

“What the hell do you – ”

When he looks up from his bloody shirt, the man is already gone, the flutter-wisp of wings the only thing that remains. Cloud sways on his feet, exhaustion overwhelming, blood-loss catching up, and he goes down hard and fast. The earth is still hard underneath him, but the flowers pillow his head, the last thing he sees before he passes out is yellow petals split by pink and red, Aerith’s worried gaze…

The next time he wakes, he’s where he started, sitting up, back against the wall and sword at his side, inside the room upstairs in Elmyra’s house. He starts awake, shame crowding out all other senses as it pulls him to consciousness. The dream floods his mouth with bile; he finds himself retching over a toilet moments later. He checks and rechecks his body in the mirror. There is no blood. There is no semen except on the inside of his underwear over his own limp cock. If his scar looks angrier than usual, he can’t be sure, and if it’s tender then so is every other muscle in his body from the hell he’s been dragged through over the past day, no ache he can trace exactly to one thing or the other.

When they set out in the morning, they pass by that flowerbed. He swallows and tries not to notice how crumpled it looks, how some are dead and black, right about at where his wrists were held.

The smell of smoke still clogs his lungs, but Sephiroth is just a remnant of his memory.

**Author's Note:**

> Darker than what I typically post (especially in the fandoms most of my existing readers might be used to), but I've loved this villain since 1997 and I'm just not seeing enough fic that wants to explore how batshit violent, stalker-creepy, and overall disturbing he is so I guess I gotta. Mild allusions to Advent Children if you caught them. 
> 
> Apologies for typos etc; I normally do 3 passes of edits to smooth over my prose but wrote this at midnight and didn't edit at all so it is what it is.


End file.
